by T.W. Selvey
The Titular Line
I have been dreaming
I am running out of time.
I return from the dream
with names. In a midday
waking world, I google
names from my dreams.
Find each name inches
me closer
to this constellation
immaterial—dense
clouds of academia. Physics
articles that I tack together.
Some version of me waded
to the ankles in Literature.
Psychology. Voice. But
a poet can be a curious thing.
I am too thick outside
of the dream. The folds do not
quite comprehend. But I try.
Discover an eye in a chasm. A cliff.
Imagine time like a seismic rift—
an upwelling of mirrors.
I steal lines from a past self
as a message to a future self
from now, now, no now.
gr—
ground control
we lay backmachine
on the hood of a vehicleboat
passed to him, it goes
backwards, he
drives backwards
more than forwards
reverse works
I, pliant to
fingers on the hood
watch the tiny
planes come in
overhead, airport.
low pines
blink
grow their rhythm
then canvass
the depth of
this hood, my cave
they move and shift
thank you
thank you
thankyoufor
cutting
your nails, for
growing into
a man like my
husband.
Well, I hold my arms in the shape
I think tectonic time would make
and my fiancé laughs.
It is clear my imagination is much
stronger than my grasp of science.
Then. I am blessed with two
nights of fabulous dream sex.
Strange grasp. Wake with my hand
on my breast, face my own dilated
eyebrows in the mirror.
The next night I go to a movie
theater; the burgundy seats are torn
fabric. A shift signifying time.
My cat is there as a human
man. So proud of him. What
a good grown up boy. He picks
apart this film that is
supposed to play, but never
plays. I pat his hand the way my
grandmother pat my hand at my
grandfather’s funeral, and cat
and I laugh, cry—laugh—
Last night, I received
two names. A betrayal
so cold, I wake with glaciers
encapsulating my teeth.
I know them well enough.
I do not google these names.
Kari Flickinger is the author of The Gull and the Bell Tower (Femme Salvé Books, December 2020). Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the SFPA Rhysling Award. She is an alumna of UC Berkeley and the Community of Writers.
Recently, T.W. Selvey’s work has appeared in The Babel Tower Notice Board, Ligeia Magazine, The Pi Review, Feral, talking about strawberries all of the time, and petrichor. T.W. tweets sporadically @docu_dement, and is the proud curator of a haphazardly curated blog, www.documentdement.com.